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I feel that I must be missing some essential trick or technique for reading jazz chords. Frankly I can't even wrap my head around how someone can process chords at a rapid rate, with different inversions, etc. For example, something I'm looking at, tempo 120, there are often two chords per beat, but even if there was only one, I can't understnad how to mentally process what goes in a G #4 flat 9 before the next chord arrives. Do you actually mentally "spell" out each chord as you play it? Is it more a matter of using your ear and not actaully "reading" each chord? Do you practice with flash cards or some other technique? Any advice is appreciated.

This is one of the most basic skills in jazz, and there are no shortcuts. I've been studying jazz for over 2 years (after 40 years of playing sheet music), and I still struggle to get the right chord. Here are some tips:1. Get a Real Book or other fake book, and spend time just site reading the tunes and comping the chords with your left hand. It's fun to play the tunes, and through repetition, you start to learn the chords. If you intend to play in a combo, go through tunes just comping the chords with both hands, no melody. You'll really learn the harmony this way. 2. For dominant 7 chords, if you want to alter them, it will be flat or sharp 9 and/or flat or sharp 5. That's only four possible alterations. Not so bad. 3. As you site read, patterns will emerge. For example, if it's a II, V I to a minor chord, you will frequently notice that the minor II has a flat 5, and the dominant V a flat 9 (check it out, they are the same notes). The patterns will help you know what is coming.4. For dominant 7, you don't always have to alter it exactly as written. If you see a V7 with a #5, but you play a b9, most times it will be O.K. The music is just calling for an altered dominant 7 of some kind.

So my bottom line for you is two fold:1. There are no shortcuts; just keep playing and slowly but surely you'll learn the chords.2. Make sure to study theory so you begin to see patterns.

I assume you are talking about chord names as opposed to the actual notes on the staff. Before you begin actually playing the music, look at a group of chord names - ask yourself what notes are changing from chord to chord - often times there is a moving voice or two in the chord progression that is not immediately apparent by just looking at individual chord symbols. Another thing to be mindful of, especially when dealing with complex chords like G13+11-9 is to mentally split them up into simpler chords - one basic chord in the LH, another basic chord in the RH but when played together form the complex chord. I will also tell yoyu that this, like anything else, takes practice.

An interesting thing happens, in my experience, when you start thinking about chords in terms of their "shapes" rather than their individual notes. With practice, you'll find that you can work out the shape from the individual notes (or chord notation) and then "lock" that in and forget the individual components, learning in the context of the song rather than as a prerequisite. Play enough songs and you'll start to see the same shapes over and over, then your chore changes to the more atypical voicings or experimenting with different sounds. The written notation becomes an archival device more than a playing aid.

Having done this a lot, I'm sometimes startled at how easy it's become for my hands to remember a new shape after only a single "stop and look".

When you think about it, how could it be any other way? Even with traditional notation you can't "read" individual notes at any speed or complexity, you have to recognize clusters or groups as single things.

Learning the chords and their inversions is most definitely an integral (and fun) part to learning jazz. Like most comments above, the more you do it, the quicker you will learn. Try to play with as many people as you can (jam sessions, fellow musicians, etc). The best thing is to find a bass player who wants to sit down and read through tunes with you. This will help you get started.

As another help, below are a few videos on jazz voicings that may give you more guidance...

1) Simplify - In most chords in jazz the "important" tones are the 3rd and the 7th. So when you see a chord like G7b9b13 on a page you can omit all the other notes and just play B (the 3rd) and F (the 7th). It won't sound as full and coloured as the full voicing but you won't be playing anything that clashes either.

2) Learn to hear/play changes - With the above in mind practice playing ii-V-I progressions around the cycle of fifths. Play the roots with your left hand. In the right hand play 3rds and 7ths. You will soon notice that the same shapes and movements recur. In most cases you'll only need to move one finger at a time in the right hand. Do this in all major and minor keys. Don't worry, it gets easier as you do it.

3) Start adding extensions to your voicings - Keeping the 3rds and 7ths start adding 9ths and 13ths to your chord voicings. Keep either a 3rd or a 7th at the bottom of the right hand voicing. Take this through the keys as well.

5) Sound like a jazzer - Play the chord voicings with your *left* hand and play melody with your right hand. If you get confused as to the chord reach over and play the bass note with your right hand.

Western tonal music tends to follow patterns. They're not hard to learn, partly because you've internalized them already from listening to them all your life. A little practice and you'll no longer be intimidated by altered chord notations. My jazz theory professor once told me: "A jazz chart doesn't tell you what to play, it tells you what's going on." The fun part of jazz is that you get to *choose* what notes to play. It can be as lush or as sparse as you want. What's important is to have a context, or a point of departure. That's what the exercises above are all about.

Try this for a few weeks and you'll soon find that you can follow chord progressions a lot more easily and that you'll know not only what to play, but what *not* to play, which is just as important.

I find what works the best for me is thinking of the more complex chords as using major & minor chords in the right hand against like the bass with the seventh for example in the left (for starters). Example: C-9+5

See? Remember, this is just for starters! Anyway this way one CAN think fast enough using charts if you know the combinations.. after you learn the basic combinations you can also of course use 7th (both major & minor)chords, 6ths chords what-have-you in the RH against the root of the chord (even of course if it's not played).. and of course other voicings in the LH!

This technique is methodically presented by Mark Harrison, in his "The Pop Piano Book". He does a nice job describing the upper three note and four note upper chords in the RH, paired with the root note in the left hand. And of course root/flat7th is a common LH jazzy voicing. After reviewing the theory, Harrison presents case studies using these techniques for various popular styles of music. It's not specifically a jazz book.

Other sources use this technique also. David Unger's on-line courses (playpianotoday.com) goes into it somewhat (look at his phat chords presentations).

Thanks Hop for responding, 'preciate it. Of course it's no secret, (music is after all science/construction too as I'm sure you well know). However, I musr admit there are a few things I generally tell not many (especially in my own town!) as concerns some really nice voicing techniques, as they work so well.. (Got to have some extra uniqueness somehow!)

On the other hand though is the fact that you can watch someone play & analyze what they're doing, or they can tell you; but by all means it doesn't mean you can play it that way as well as they do, if at all! Everyone plays differently, that is the supreme beauty of it.

I agree. I came across a very pleasing voicing in one of the arrangements I play.

The LH plays the root and the (flat or dominant) 7th (nothing surprising here). The RH plays the third, then the 6th, then the 9th. I have heard the intervals in the RH described as "quartiles", since they are a fourth apart.

Thinking triadically is a very nice way to come up with interesting voicings. To me voicings are all about memorizing shapes. As you do more of it, you'll start to recognize common shapes making it easier for your muscle memory to take over and get to the chord you want. One thing I recommend if you are building the chords with the LH 3&7 RH Triad approach is to make sure you are understanding what chords you are playing instead of just calling them something like 'C maj 7 with a D triad on top' or 'D/C'. As you are practicing, form those voicing but then also call out the chord tones and their names in your mind or out loud.

This is also something you can practice away from the piano just by visualization in your mind. If you do it enough, eventually you won't have to think so hard about it and it'll come naturally...

True JPE in what you say. Also shapes really help, but some quite different shapes makes the very same sound (neglecting the way different key signatures sound)!

Hop, that's a 13th chord you've got there! Yes, there is even a system utilizing stacks of 4ths (mine!). Can you reach a 4 note 4ths stack in your LH? (C F Bb Eb) I like 4ths stacks as they're so easy to memorize. Anyway, if you lower the 2nd & 3rd notes in this stack you get a 6/9 chord. If you contract them 1/2 step each you get a dim°7. If you lower just the 2nd you get a 7+9. And so on. You use the 4 note 4th stack as a "home base". Pretty cool eh?

I started to write a book about this kind of helpful theory stuff, I need to get with it and just do it! Makes me kind of scared to even mention it here..

...but some quite different shapes makes the very same sound (neglecting the way different key signatures sound)!

Yep that's for sure, that's why it helps me to learn them in groups so that playing in different keys won't be an issue. To take a simple example with just major triads, the groups below each have the same shape. This concept can be applied to more sophisticated voicings

Yes, I agree. I think of it as a root seven (R7) in the LH, and a 9th, 11th and 13th in the RH (not a Dmin/C).

I agree with your visualiztion suggestion also. I like to go through chords and even music mentally while on a long highway drive (assuming very light traffic, such as in South Carolina during the afternoon). If a traffic situation makes me suddenly abandon the effort, it's even more helpful to mentally find your way back later.

JPE, the times I've taught piano I taught them music theory, using this same system. The "all three" whites, the group with black in the middle, the blacks with white in the middle & the "oddball" group with all blacks, or two blacks or whites together on top. What's nice is that the minor chords follow this as well. Truly this is the BEST way to remember your basic chords, first in root position. Thanks for the link, isn't the internet useful? 'Wish they had it when I was a kid, but perhaps then I wouldn't have learned to play the piano, because of excessive surfing, you know?

I need to write my book already, to share the joys of music and to make hopefully some $!

Actually as you're in your interesting voicing playing the a 7th in the bass it's a 13th chord as I've previously stated. It's very common practice to leave the 11th out in a 13th chord. Anyway play around on the "A" blues scale against this harmony for yet more pleasing interesting effects!

Ive been practicing my bass reading just 1-3 times a week, and I can really feel the improvement. Im now reading through the bass line of magnetic rag (easy to read with a lot of single or double notes), faster then I can learn it - I can get through one page a day, but its still slower then my treble reading and more difficult.

I am making 0 mistakes when learning the notes too, I can read them all correctly, and just need to improve my reading speed and ease.

I think I might be able to take on they Charleston after a couple more Joplin pieces - I am going to try really hard to learn the rest of the notes to magnetic rag by the end of April, if I manage that, I will have learnt the notes in just 2-3 weeks, which will be a personal major accomplishment for me .